Ok back to the thread.
3000/year seems a push to me, and maybe an underestimate of the true requirement. We struggle to recruit 10 per month, that we want anyway, then we seem to have around a 50% failure rate; and that's an improvement on a couple of years ago.
Another factor in producing future shortage is that the majority of our current recruits are over 55, so we're recruiting guy's that are both likely to take sick leave and who will only remain in the middle East for a short period. These guys take 6 months of training center time for the little return.